Tuesday, 25 September 2012

We're Only Here For The Banter - Randolph's Leap

Continuing with our Olive Grove Records lovefest, it's the turn of our favourite 8 piece band to join us for some banter! Of course we mean Randolph's Leap, a band who we have been very pleased to see announcing good news in the form of recently signing to Fence Records. You may remember that lead singer Adam Ross was on the Scottish Fiction radio show some time back, so here in written form is our chat from that session.

Hello, how are you?

Good thanks!Would you mind telling us a little about your music and the band?

Well there's eight of us at the moment, and we get described as 'folk-pop'. And we've kind of grown to an eight piece from starting out as just me on my own about five or six years ago. When we play gigs and festivalsWith eight of you in the band, I imagine there must be lots of different influences that you each bring to the mixing pot. How easy is it to draw on those different influences when making music?

It's funny when we play gigs or go to festivals, it's very very rare that Gareth or Heather will both agree on a band. Anything ambient or involving loop pedals, Gareth will write off very quickly, but that's the stuff that Heather is in to. But there's enough of a sense of what's a good song and what's crap for us to be united. When making music though it's a dictatorship! Not really! The words are usually written before the band hear it, but it would be wrong of me not to say the band at a huge amount to the final output.What could we expect to see from a live show?

Well that's the funny thing. The initial idea, and my justification for having an eight piece band, was that if one person couldn't make a gig it wouldn't matter as there'd be seven of us and we'll just do it differently. But because they are all such good musicians, when someone isn't there you really notice! Or at least I do! So it is best when all eight of us are there, and we manage most gigs these days as an eight piece. And it's quite full on, although we don't use electric guitars so it's maybe not as loud as other bands, but we always try make it about having fun.

What have you got planned for the rest of 2012?

We are releasing an EP with Fence Records which will be new songs. It's released on 7" and is called 'Hermit' and is out on October 26th with a launch gig at The Glad Cafe on the same night. We've started recording a full album.

We've got a brand new CD out, 'Introducing... Randolph's Leap' which comes with a bonus EP. And the CD is also coming out in Japan as well.

If it were all to end tomorrow, what would you say has been your greatest achievement?

We played a gig not too long ago at The Fruitmarket supporting King Creosote and The Pictish Trail, which was probably the most people we've played too. There was hundreds of folk there which was a bit daunting. And it was a good gig to be playing to that many people and supporting those guys, but more than that it was just really enjoyable!

At Scottish Fiction we focus on new Scottish music, how do you as a band view the Scottish music 'community'?I think it's really good. It's a bit of a strange one, because people are very passionate and enthusiastic about Scottish music, purely because it's Scottish. The recent SAY Awards were a good example of that, a lot people got behind it, which I think was a really good thing. And it's good and it's healthy. But it was strange to have all those bands compared who are completely different to each other. The common denominator there was that they were all based in Scotland. But it's good to have that support and infrastructure there.What other Scottish artists would you recommend to the Scottish Fiction readers?The State Broadcasters, who are also on Olive Grove Records, we are big fans of. A lot of the people who play in Randolph's Leap also play in other bands as well. Heather plays violin for Kill The Waves, Gareth plays keyboards for BMX Bandits and Lenzie Moss, Fraser plays in Esperanza who are a ska band, and also Blocherstra.

This interview is transcribed from the live show where Adam Ross of Randolp's Leap was our guest. Listen back to this hereCheck out more from Randolph's Leap

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